Our Top Ten Starting Tips: Hometown Heroic Difficulty 2

Pause For Thought: Use the pause function frequently to assess the situation, plan upgrades, or buy new towers, especially on Sudden Death maps where money accumulates quickly. Pausing also reveals enemy paths, allowing you to strategically place towers. The only exception is Time Trial maps where the clock continues to run while paused.

Buy Back Towers: Budgeting at the start is crucial. Selling towers while the game is paused returns the full purchase price. If sold while un-paused, you receive a reduced value. This allows for timely upgrades or replacements, essential for Time Trial and Sudden Death maps.

Unlock Better Towers Early: Replaying the tutorial level on Heroic difficulty at the start grants 2 stars, making subsequent levels easier. Completing 'Twist of Fate' on Casual or Tough unlocks useful towers like the Hive, Tesla, and Flamethrower, making Heroic difficulty more manageable. On iOS, downloading both free and paid versions unlocks the Polymorph Tower for free, even before the first map.

Create Pincer Points and Bottlenecks: Funnel enemies into narrow paths lined with towers for maximum damage. Fieldrunners prefer to run upwards and take the shortest path. Use towers to guide them into confined spaces, ideally looping back. Corners naturally slow enemies, making them ideal spots for slowing towers followed by area-of-effect towers.

Itemized Approach: Don't dismiss items due to coin cost; they are effective in difficult situations. Items can bypass enemy immunities to certain towers, such as Hazmat runners to Gas Towers. Spanish Flu can eliminate groups of Hazmat runners. A varied selection of items simplifies achieving 3-star ratings on all levels.

Proper Item Use: Save items for when they will have the most impact. Their damage percentage remains constant regardless of enemy health. This makes them particularly effective in endless mode where enemy health increases significantly, allowing them to take down even tank-like units when your towers struggle.

PC Hot-Keys: Utilize keyboard shortcuts for faster tower and item selection, especially beneficial in Time Trial maps. Keys 1-6 select towers in order, and keys Q, W, and E select items.